MANY AMBITIOUS UTAH BUSINESSES aspire to be the best in the world
at what they do. Others find a goal like that far too limiting.

Utah's aerospace industry is soaring with ever more
sophisticated technologies that get blasted ever farther out of this
world. Just in October, NASA's Cassini space probe entered the
rings of Saturn, taking the first pictures from the gas planet, 800
million miles above Utah.

"We provide the ride," ATK Thiokol's executive vice
president Kevin Cummings says of the company's mind-boggling
missions to launch everything from deep space probes to the Space
Shuttle. It was Thiokol rockets that launched the Cassini on its way.

ATK Thiokol is the 800-pound gorilla of Utah's re-awakening
aerospace industry, which Governor Jon Huntsman is eager to recruit as
part of his plan for economic development and international exposure for
the state. More than 4,000 of ATK's employees work from Promontory near Brigham City to the Bacchus Works in Magna. Four hundred work at
the company's composites division in Clearfield, turning out
lightweight and strong composite components to go on everything from
submarines to satellites.

In Logan, Utah State University's Space Dynamics Lab has
carved out its own leading niche. Its specialty is building sensing
devices to fly on the satellites for which ATK and others provide the
rides. It is also a leader in data compression, allowing more and better
information to be transmitted, whether the satellite is looking outward,
like the Hubble Space Telescope, or inward, looking back at earth to
help predict weather or to spy on enemies.

Both SDI's director Mike Pavitch and ATK's Cummings say
Utah is coming out of a flat period in aerospace. The collapse of tech
stocks, followed by the 9-11 terrorist attacks, dampened the demand for
private communications satellite launches and diverted some space-based
defense spending to the ground-level war on terrorism.

But work and hiring is now on the upswing in several areas.

ATK Thiokol is growing on two tracks, rocket propulsion and
composite materials. Its composites business in Clearfield and Magna is
using lightweight graphite-based technology to build airframes and other
components for ground-based planes and space-bound satellites. "We
can save up to half the weight with the same strength," ATK's
composites vice president Mike Blair says. "We're the largest
free-standing composites com-pany in the world."

While composites have been around for at least four decades,
Blair's group has invented an automated system to place bundles of
fiber in a mold where the fibers are laid in several directions for
strength and then coated with resin to form the part. "Others have
to do this by hand," Blair points out. "We can do it cheaper
and faster and make it lighter."

In its Utah plants, the company now builds the tail assembly for
the Pentagon's stealth fighter, the F/A 22. Composites are now
finding their way into the new Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, Bell
Helicopters, and a Boeing commercial jet called the 7E7, dubbed
Boeing's "plastic plane," due for rollout next year.

ATK Composites also builds rocket casings for the shuttle motors
built at Promontory and casings for a number of other rockets. It also
builds casings for satellites, and is competing for a number of defense
contracts, including future Navy ships with decking and superstructure
made of composites, both for their light weight and their radar-avoiding
stealth characteristics.

At Promontory, meanwhile, the company is busy preparing for the
Space Shuttle's return to space, set for May. It also has a leading
role in coming up with a repair kit so astronauts can repair Shuttle
wing damage in flight. (It was a damaged wing that led to
Columbia's fiery disintegration in the skies over Texas.)

ATK Thiokol is looking past the shuttle to the next generation of
space vehicles. "We're entering into new areas, new
missions," Mike Kahn, vice president for space programs, reports.
The shuttle will need to fly for at least another five years to carry
components and maintain the International Space Station. After that,
NASA is looking to build smaller crew exploration vehicles launched with
smaller rockets, while evolving the use of shuttle motors for unmanned
heavy lifting capacity to get enough equipment in space to launch
missions to the Moon and Mars.

It's all pretty heady stuff for Utah-based employees who
really are rocket scientists. Between the NASA missions, commercial
satellite launchings and defense contracts for systems like the
Pentagon's Global Missile Defense, the Promontory plant has grown
the past three years. "We'll be adding 400 new employees this
year," Cummings reports, "and these are good jobs. Our average
employee makes $50,000 a year, nearly twice the average Utah wage."

On the other side of the mountains from Promontory, the Space
Dynamics Lab is back to growing after losing jobs last year when the
Pentagon cancelled a $26 million dollar contract. "We're now
stable and growing," reports Pavitch, a retired Air Force Major
General. "Its time for a rebound."

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Pavitch sees future growth for his staff of 350 in its sensing and
data compression products, which will fly on NASA's next generation
replacement for the Hubble and the James Webb telescopes. Other growth
will come from an embryonic technology involving a new way to sense
pixels of data coming from space and work on devices for UAVs (unmanned
aviation vehicles). Pavitch is also counting on a Pentagon contract
award for a technology he will only describe as "classified."
SDL operates as a private business, but since it is owned by USU, its
profits go back to the school.

Closer to earth, other aerospace contractors work at Hill Air Force
Base in a support and maintenance role. And the concentration of Utah
engineers with knowledge in composites has led to more than a dozen
spin-off composites companies making everything from aviation parts to
bicycle parts.

"We have a long history of aerospace in Utah," notes Jeff
Edwards of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, the nonprofit
which recruits new businesses to the state. "It has a wonderful
potential for us. These companies come and stay for a long time. They
don't move lightly."

But they do move far. As far as the rings of Saturn.

Larry Warren is a Park City-based writer and media consultant, and
owner of Warren Media Group.

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